


Where the Mighty Have Fallen

by Kerioth



Category: Monument Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 11:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8889256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kerioth/pseuds/Kerioth
Summary: In which monuments are built and abandoned, mistakes are made and atoned for, and friendship is found.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Care](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Care/gifts).



The valley was quiet, until the monuments gave it music. It was empty, until the Builders came to fill it with their Sacred Geometry and its works. It was decaying, after the Builders passed into bones in the dark, until the bird people came.

Ida had either not been in charge very long or had been in charge forever, depending on who you asked. She was everything the People expected from a leader, though: fast, pretty, brave, and clever. When they first found the valley, Ida led them in a tight group through the collection of strange ruins. The People had stories about the Builders, but even the oldest of them believed they were just stories until they saw the remains of the Builders' work in the valley.

The People wander through and over and around the monuments, speculating about the wonders in voices different from the monuments' music. When they bring the strange shapes to their princess, they believe they are honoring her with their gifts. Ida accepts the gifts gathered around her and inspects them with little prods of her wingtips and beak. She does not notice the loss of her crown, not at first.

Time works differently in the valley. The path she follows through the monuments also works differently, but Ida doesn't know the words to describe how it is different. Sometimes the sun shines on water and sometimes the moon glows above a high tower and sometimes it feels like she's close enough to the wide open space to reach out and touch the sparkling stars. For a moment – or for a long time – she looks up.

Looking at her, Totem knows the time has come. Or something like that. Before, Totem's purpose was to decorate the monuments, but Ida's quest provides a new purpose. Totem likes being close to her, ready to lift her up or make a bridge or hold up the ceiling crushing down. They are friends, Totem hopes, or they will be friends, even though they don't have a way to speak to each other.

The crows try to speak to her, to demand her attention. The will to fly left them gradually, the memory of the sky beyond the valley fading like the colors of their feathers. They spread out among the monuments like dull spots of shadow, wandering or sitting and kicking their heels. Each time a pacing crow turns, their vision narrows to the path before them. What came before and what will come after hold no interest. While she is in sight, only the princess matters. While she is not, nothing matters.

Ida walks everywhere: back and forth, around, upside down, through doors that lead in unexpected ways to further sections of the path before her. The need to return the strange shapes ("Sacred Geometry," the glowing man in the funny hat called them) is a gentle tug. She has all the time she needs to trace the path through the monuments, avoiding the crow people who scream in her face if she gets too close.

The monuments' guardians speak with almost no emotion, the edges worn off of their laments with the passing of time. The Builders had played with time in some of their creations, but in the end they all passed into the dark and left their creations alone. The bird people are thieves, but they are also the only beings to come to the valley since the Builders finished their work.

The rows and rows of tombs seem too close together, too quiet in their silent ranks stretched out further than Ida can see. She leaves an offering behind. It is one bright spot in a dark room. She is one light figure among dark crows. This seems important, but before Ida can decide why it is important, she is standing somewhere else, and there are more shapes to return.

The Builders didn't name their work. Once they created something and put it in motion, added sound and light and color, they let it be. A monument that inspires admiration has no need of a name, they said. At first, the People only had names for each other. Although they named other things as they grew and moved about the world, there were still not enough words to describe the way the Builders' work moved as they circled in the valley.

The first of the People to take a strange shape from the top of one of the monuments dropped it in surprise when the walls of the monument shifted. Another bird caught the shape out of the air before it could be lost in the mist. They argued over who would get the most credit when they brought it back to the princess. When they saw that Ida liked the shape, they made it a game to see who could take a shape and keep hold of it the longest.

As she walks, Ida wonders what the monuments were for, before she saw them. They have wonders, but those wonders seem pointless with no one in sight to enjoy them. The path before her unfolds a few steps at a time. No matter how many times it changes direction she still feels that she is moving forward, although she isn't sure what she will find when she arrives, or even if there is a place to arrive at.

When the Builders first saw the valley, it was full of waterfalls and cliffs, covered by blue sky during the day and sparkling stars at night. They shaped the valley's beauty into their work, molding rivers into never-ending channels of water and mountains into spires with their roots in mist and their peaks in the clouds. The longer they worked, the more they wanted to work. They dug deep into the earth and built high into the sky, finishing each new work with a portion of Sacred Geometry to preserve it.

Totem remembers the dark from before. When Totem's eyes opened for the first time, the Builders stood around and admired Totem for a while, and then turned to other work. The Builders wanted their creations to last forever. Once they had gone down to the tombs, however, there was no one left to see the monuments or admire them. Totem is not sure if the Builders would have sought out each piece and reassembled them to restore Totem, but Ida does. This seems important, and Totem wishes there were words for it that Ida could understand.

Ida finds the end of her path when she restores the last piece of the Sacred Geometry to its place. When her crown and her people are restored, she leads them out of the valley. She brings Totem as well. After all that she and Totem have done together, she hopes that they are friends, or that they will be friends, even though she doesn't have a way to ask.

The People are curious about Totem and a little afraid at first that bringing Totem with them will have consequences similar to taking the Sacred Geometry. After a few uneventful days, they return to life the way it was before they found the valley. The People don't stay in one place for very long, and this gives Totem many new things to see. Totem's favorite part, however, is just sitting in the grass with Ida and watching the others circle overhead.


End file.
